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Employees in the intelligence community (IC) who report waste, fraud and abuse have gained whistleblower protections, under a directive President Barack Obama issued Wednesday. The presidential policy directive aims to ensure intelligence and national security employees are able to legally report agency wrongdoing and be protected from retaliation for doing so.

Why doesn't the policy directive mention the Office of Special Counsel as an avenue where nat'l security whistleblowers may safely blow the whistle? For one, it is the only avenue that guarantees confidentiality and channels the disclosures to Congress and the National Security Advisor. Moreover, the directive directs the Director of National Intelligence to educate the workforce about their options. Many of them don't know what's out there (otherwise why would we have the Drake case or the Kiriakou case?)
Tom Devine of GAP once told me, in CYA mode, that “Everybody knows that Title 5 [executive branch] employees can make classified disclosures to OSC.” Well either that's true, in which case this directive is not that groundbreaking (since it's largely redundant). Or, and this is more likely, OSC is being treated like the ugly and ignored step-child of the federal bureaucracy, once again, for the 35th year in a row. It seems it will remain obscure yet again, and the rights granted will be insufficient and inferior to what's already on paper.
If only Devine was telling the truth then, or trying to make it come true now.